The #9 Emporia State volleyball team swept yet another opponent last Tuesday, defeating Southwest Baptist University in the last regular season home game, 3-0.
“Tonight before the game we told them, ‘Hey, our main task is talking,’” said Head Coach Bing Xu. “You have to talk.”
The Hornets did just that. Communication was never an issue for the team, as set number one started with a tie at 10 until the Hornets started a 12-3 run, eventually winning the set with relative ease, 25-17.
The second set of the night proved to be a bit more challenging for the Hornets. ESU jumped out to an early 5-0 lead before SBU would fight back with a 7-point effort to take advantage of the lead, 7-5. Both teams would trade points back and forth, until a supreme effort by senior outside hitter and marketing major Arica Shepard finished the set with back to back kills to win the game, 25-21.
“When it comes down to crunch time, you know you need to go out there and put your heart out on the floor,” Shepard said. “Plus it’s senior year – you have to have no regrets.
Coming in here we knew what we were supposed to do. We knew what kind of a team this was. Coming in here it does help our confidence after the loss last Friday and so hopefully we get two more under our belt before regionals start.”
The third and final set of the evening was a one-sided affair. ESU led the entire set, and was never really threatened by SBU. The Hornets took the set and the match with ease, 25-11.
Several Hornets put up impressive stats in areas in which they weren’t necessarily known for. Versatility played a role in dominating Southwest Baptist.
“There are a bunch of players on the team that might not be able to show it off every single game but have really good capabilities,” Shepard said. “Like Brittany, she did amazing blocking today…it’s awesome to know that everybody’s capable of doing a lot more than what they’re just supposed to do.”
Junior outside hitter and nursing major Brittany Miller led the team in kills on the night with 12, followed closely by Shepard with 11. Shepard pitched in 15 digs to lead the Hornets – senior libero and health promotion major Amy Byfield added 11. Once again, junior setter and business major Ting Liu led the Hornets in assists with 28.
Miller felt whole-heartedly that a game like this one was positive for the team’s experience.
“I think it is definitely a good confidence booster for especially the younger ones,” Miller said. “In these types of games, we try to work on things that we’re not as good at so that when we do have a tougher opponent we can have that confidence to do those types of things. That’s what we tried to do in this game.”
Xu echoed the sentiment.
“I think it builds confidence…we really need to play our game and carry on to the postseason,” Xu said. “They know how important these last three games are, so they prepared well.”
Shepard believes that the team has yet to play their best volleyball.
“You know, we’ve played some really great games, and we’ve played some really bad games throughout the season,” Shepard said. “Hopefully, we’re on a stretch where we’re doing the really good games and we carry it over to next week. We’ve had plenty of talks about how this is crunch time, this is the end of the season, this is when everybody needs to step up and play their best game. So I think that’s come across to a lot of the players and hopefully this continues – we’ll be a lot smoother than in the past.”
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